Your firm is drifting. You just don't see it yet.
Most founders don't notice the perception gap until a prospect asks them point-blank: "What are you really best at?" By then, the gap has been building for years.
- Article
Insights Category
Positioning & Differentiation
How you want to be seen, how the market actually sees you, and the gap between the two. Why “our people” is not a position, and why messaging can’t fix one.
Positioning & Differentiation
From Capabilities to Specialty: How a Boutique Firm Found Its Positioning Hiding in Plain Sight
Most boutique consulting firms compete on the same two words: "our people." Abelian Partners was no different, until they discovered that their real differentiator wasn't who they were, but how they made their clients' buying decision safer than the...
- Client Story
- Market shift
You Bought the Firm. You Inherited the Position.
Every ownership transition is a positioning transition. The market already knows who you are, based on years of consistent delivery and reputation. Your team already believes in a different version of the firm than the one you're trying to build....
- Article
- Ownership change
What the Best Boutique Firms Are Doing Right, Now
I analyzed trends across my entire client roster, business development conversations, and Consulting Growth Insights Live interviews and here are the trends that are true across the most successful firms.
- Article
The Question That Exposes Everything
If your answer to “what makes you different?” sounds like everybody else, you don’t have a messaging issue. You have an indecision issue. Pick a position. Prove it with behavior. Then say it loudly.
- Article
Visibility Without Clarity is Liability: Why You're Not Ready to Hire a Marketer
Stop screaming gibberish into the microphone. More people hearing you is only good news when those people understand you. If the market still can't place your firm, hiring a marketer now will probably create more output than traction. It will make...
- Article
If You’re the “Cheaper Than Accenture" Firm, You’ve Already Lost
Boutique firms lose to large firms for a reason that has very little to do with sales skill. Many boutiques keep walking into deals where scale and CYA are the selection criteria, then act surprised when don't win. While extremely frustrating, this...
- Article
You Can’t Copywrite Your Way Out of a Positioning Problem
The issue, at least in part, stems from a massive conflation of terms in the B2B space. Marketing leaders, agencies, and even self-proclaimed "experts" use the terms Positioning, Narrative, and Messaging interchangeably.They are not the same...
- Article
The Lies We Tell Ourselves: We Need More Demand
You don't have a demand problem. Story time... The day that referrals stopped rolling in for my first agency is seered into my mind. Things were...
- Article
Repositioning from a Position of Strength
When things are fine financially, positioning doesn't usually get into the conversation. Even when a firm first begins to struggle, most questions and proposed solutions are surface-level tactics. Only when the struggles become more systemic, do...
- Article
- Market shift
The Lies We Tell Ourselves: We Have No Competition
First article in a multi-part series about the lies that boutique consulting firm founders tell themselves, which stifle growth.
- Article
The Category Design Trap for Consulting Firms
While catregory design isn't completely unheard of in consulting, it isn't a terribly common strategy, and it's for a good reason - in most cases it isn't necessary.
- Article
Underpromise and Overdeliver is Incredibly Detrimental to Your Brand
We had just gotten verbally spanked by the client during a QBR - We had missed the mark on a key deliverable. I was debriefing with my boss at the...
- Article
Is Your Firm "The Best Kept Secret in the Industry?"
It happened again. It was a hot summer evening, and the monsoon rain was coming down hard against my office window. The phone rang, and the vibration...
- Article
Is Your Firm Really Different?
There are actually 3 layers of differentiation, yet in most cases only one - functional differentiation is talked about and implemented. This contributes to the risk perception of your firm.
- Article
Do you really have an ICP?
Do you believe that the target market your firm serves is well-defined? Do your colleagues believe that? Many consulting and advisory firm leaders...
- Article
Your People Aren't Your Differentiator
There are more than 1,300,000 consulting firms in the United States . This number spans a variety of specialties and includes everything for the...
- Article
Don't Hitch Your Wagon to the Wrong Horse: Vendor Partnerships Make for Poor Positioining
A few years ago a prospective reached out. They were an AWS partner - literally their entire business was based on AWS, and they had grown fairly...
- Article
From Cost Arbitrage to Value Driver: How a Boutique Offshore Staffing Firm Shifted Perception and Unlocked Premium Pricing
Most boutique offshore staffing firms compete on the same two factors: price per head and placement speed. Atticus Solutions was no different, until they discovered that the infrastructure they'd already built to de-risk offshore delivery was worth...
- Client Story
- Market shift
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